Lyudmila Putina is the wife of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In her early years she was an airline stewardess on local flights from Kaliningrad. In 1986 Putina graduated from the Branch of Spanish language and philology of the Department of Philology of Leningrad State University, where in 1990-1994 she in turn taught German. She married Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin on July 28, 1983; they have two daughters, Maria, born 1985 and Katerina (Katja) (born 1986 in Dresden). The daughters attended the German School in Moscow (Deutsche Schule Moskau) until Putin's appointment as Prime Minister in 1999.In 1993 in Kaliningrad she got into a life-threatening car accident and was seriously wounded. After this she converted to the Orthodox faith.For a few years until 1999 she was a Moscow representative of the JSC Telecominvest.Following tradition, Putina maintains a low profile on the Russian political stage, generally avoiding the limelight except as required by protocol and restricting her public role to supportive statements about her husband.Putina is curator of a fund aimed to develop Russian language and sometimes produces statements concerning Russian language and education.
